Chapter Five

Her phone trilled later that night when she was in bed again—Honey had been amazed that he had been able to keep himself from checking up on her until then, but he had.

You don't have to talk to me if you don't want to.

She could hear him saying that to her in a disappointed, reluctant tone.

I just want to know that you're okay—physically, at least. That I didn't hurt you—either time I had you and made you cry because of it. I don't think I realized that you were going to be hell on my ego once we'd become more than friends."

Physically okay.

I'm glad.

I'm just going to say this once, and then I'll do my best to leave you alone. It nearly killed him to type those words, but he meant them. I'm here, if you want to talk to me. My arms are always open to you. I'm glad to know that you're fine physically—which means I didn't hurt you unknowingly, I assume. But I'm just as concerned about your mental and emotional states, too, and I can't help wishing that you still felt safe enough with me to at least let me hold you, even if you aren't ready to talk or don't want to go any further than that. Sleep well, Honey B. I'll be thinking about you and missing you until you're in my arms again.

Sometimes she just hated how nice he was to her, especially when she'd been a shitty submissive, and an even worse friend, having left him with no explanation. And in tears, no less, as if he'd taken his fists to her, after what had been an extremely profound evening for them both, she would be willing to bet. But she felt too raw to handle him at the moment, especially since she now knew the extent to which she was so devastatingly susceptible to him. He was her perfect Dom—as she had known he would be—just right, firm, stern, and calm, but more than Dom enough to make her shiver with just a look if she disobeyed him.

And Christ, he was about to kill her every time he made her come, he was so fucking potent to her! He pressed every one of her buttons—some she didn't even know she had!

It made her feel scraped raw—inside and out—which was something that had blindsided her, that she'd never anticipated feeling in conjunction with becoming closer to him. Perhaps she should have, but she had thought all of these feelings had faded away, and last night's overwhelming intensity proved to her that she'd been fooling herself the entire time. She'd never really gotten over him. She doubted she ever would.

And that set Honey back on her heels. She might have been a writer—and thus considered a bit avant garde by some—but, overall, she had her crap together. And as honest as she tried to be with Sabin, she'd tried to be that scrupulously honest with herself, too. It was a real awakening to realize that she really hadn't been—with either of them, apparently. And once she got all of that stuff straight in her mind, she knew that he was going to be waiting for her.

But he wouldn't wait very long before making another move. And it would be a much more devastating one than he'd made last night, because he knew her even better now. He knew what she liked and knew that he fit the bill perfectly. That gave him a lot more power than she might be comfortable with him having. She wasn't sure, and she couldn't even contemplate that yet.

***

It was almost two weeks before he heard anything from her. Fourteen unexpected, long days of wondering if he'd ever see her again, much less be able to hold her in his arms and kiss her, or sink himself into her, or put her over his lap and spank her until she was sobbing as beautifully as she had that night.

Although half of that time was on him, since he'd left only seven days afterwards on an emergency basis to quell fires, at one of the many businesses he owned that was relatively remotely situated. As a result of his mind dwelling stubbornly on her, Sabin wasn't at all himself once he got there, and he hated being distracted like that while he was working, He had a feeling it was going to be like that until this thing between them was resolved, one way or the other. And he was damned if it was going to end up being 'the other'. As he'd acknowledged to himself before, he'd always been upfront and forthright with her. But considering the way he felt about her, he knew he wasn't going to be above doing whatever he needed to do, to have her in his life and in his bed.

He'd left so quickly that he hadn't had a chance to call or text her about it, either. Well, truthfully, he hadn't taken the chance when he'd had it, wondering somewhat petulantly if she really wanted to hear from him, anyway, after that many days of radio silence.

"C'mon, boss," Teddy, who doubled as his bodyguard, said, deliberately needling him by using a title he hated. He might as well just have called him 'Don'. "We'll be home soon, and you can do whatever you need to do about Ms. Jacobsen."

His head snapped up at that, giving Teddy a dark glare. "Who said anything about Honey?"

"No one did. But you have to admit that you've been down in the dumps since she left that morning." He didn't mention the fact that his money was on the idea that they had finally done the deed after all of this time. Neither he nor Harry had any idea what had gone wrong after that, but he'd be willing to bet that it was something Sabin had done, rather than Honey—just on general principles. In his considerable experience, strife in a relationship was almost always the man's fault, whether or not he was willing to admit it, and they very rarely were even when he recognized such a failure in his own behavior.

Sabin grimaced but didn't say anything further. He drove himself and his team mercilessly, the entire time he was there. He couldn't get home fast enough. Hell, he'd take just getting to a place where he had cell reception and could either send or hopefully receive a text.

And when he finally made it to an area of relative civilization, with an actual connection on his iPhone, he got a slew of messages—some of them even from her.

It had taken her about ten days before she'd reached out to him, apparently, and now it was a week after that before he'd had a chance to respond.

Her first text read, Sabin, I'd like to see you and talk about things, if you want to.

He knew she'd added that last phrase because of the insecurities that plagued her from prior relationships. If it took him the rest of his life, he'd do his utmost to help her know that he would always 'want to' do anything with her—fuck, talk, scrub out the toilet. He didn't care, as long as he was with her.

That message had arrived the evening of the Tuesday after he'd left. The next came that Wednesday morning. I'm not sure if you got my text from yesterday, although it says it was delivered. I'd just like to get together and talk about things. Sometime. Whenever works for you is fine.

Then, a day later, You okay?

And later that evening, Sabin? Even if you don't want to talk to me, would you please answer, so that I can stop worrying?

Sabin?

Answer me, dammit! I'm worried to death here!

She left a zillion more of them, each more worried than the one before, until the last message was actually a voicemail from the next morning.

"I finally remembered that you'd given me your secretary's number a long, long time ago. I think she was Peggy Johnston at that point, but I guess it's now Dante Clough. He told me that you'd been called out of town on a business emergency, to somewhere where you likely weren't able to get any kind of connection. I'll stop worrying—and annoying you with texts—now. He didn't know when you'd be back in town, but when you're back, and if you want to get together, I'd like to, too. But only if you want to, of course. And I'll understand if you don't."

The diffident way she sounded, as if she was trying not to care if he never got in touch with her again, made his heart clench painfully, recognizing it as the defense mechanism that it was and wishing she hadn't felt the need to do that with him, although he understood the impulse.

He had her number up and was ready to punch 'call', but then he thought better of it. It was still going to be at least another full day of travel before he was actually home, and he thought he had a better, more demonstrative idea than merely calling her back.

Because of the inevitable delays, it was a day and a half before he got back, at which time he fell into bed and didn't move for about twelve hours. When Sabin awoke, it was nine at night, on Friday. He got up, took a shower and dressed in a pair of dress pants and a white oxford shirt. Then he picked up his phone again and dialed her number.

It went directly to voicemail, which made him frown darkly, wondering where she was and—much more importantly to him—who she was with, even though he knew that she wasn't seeing anyone at the moment, except for him. And he intended to make certain that it stayed that way, too. Preferably, for the rest of her life.

It was past one the next morning when Honey slid her key into the lock and entered her darkened apartment. Brows drawn, she wondered why the lamp on the table between her two recliners wasn't on—it was on a timer and was supposed to come on automatically at eleven. She shrugged as she closed and locked the door behind her. Maybe the bulb had blown. She'd look into it tomorrow.

For the moment, she stepped into her living room while digging out her phone to use the flashlight function to make her way to her bedroom. She certainly knew the way without it, but a painful encounter with a cat toy last summer that had landed her in the ER, getting a cast on her wrist, had made her warier of ever stepping on one again.

But before she could wrestle her phone out of her tiny purse, into which it barely fit, she heard the click of the very same lamp as it suddenly came on—at his behest.

Shocked at the sight of him in her apartment, she shrieked a little, covering her mouth as she stared at him. "Jesus H. Christ, what are you doing here? You nearly scared me to death!"

"You suggested that we should get together and talk," he answered mildly.

"Yes, but I didn't even know you were home! Why didn't you tell me?"

"You know how I hate phones."

She dropped her purse onto her hall tree and faced him. "You could have texted."

"I wanted to surprise you. I intended to get together with you this evening. I got home this morning and fell into bed, but I was up at about seven or so, and I called you to tell you I was home and hopefully get together with you this evening, but it went straight to voicemail."

She didn't really know why, but she was shifting nervously on her feet and fidgeting with her fingers as he sat there, watching her a bit too closely for her comfort. "I was out with some friends. We went to see The Invisible Man then to Mr. Stout's for dinner and drinks. I must've forgotten to turn my phone back on after the movie. I'm sorry."

Why was she apologizing to him? she chided herself. It wasn't her fault that she didn't know when he was going to be home; it was his!

Still, Honey felt the very strong impulse to run into his arms, but he seemed unusually remote, when he was almost never like that with her, and that perception of him kept her right where she was.

"Drinks?" he repeated, eyes narrowing on her.

"Yes."

"Did you drive home, Miss Honey?" His ask was almost conversational, but she knew it wasn't, really. She began to fidget even more at his question, even though she'd done nothing wrong. If she had driven herself home, she knew she'd be in big trouble with him, and she found that idea both tantalizing and troubling.

"No. Jane drove tonight."

"The one who doesn't drink?"

"Right."

"Good. I'm glad. If I'd found out that you had driven home drunk, or gotten into a car with someone who was drunk, I would have made certain that you would never do so again."

Even though she already knew that, his tone as he spelled it out for her sent a shiver through her that she hoped he hadn't noticed, but she would have bet he had.

"Aren't you going to welcome me home?" he asked, raising his arms to her as he sat there, dwarfing her small recliner, manspreading as if it was his right. "Even before we got together, you always greeted me with a hug after I've been gone."

With a surprising amount of reluctance that she knew she wasn't hiding very well, she came forward to bend down and hug him, and he very gently but insistently coerced her into sitting on his lap. Not that it was a hardship—not at all. But she did want to talk to him about things before there was any further intimacy between them, and this really didn't help her hold to that resolution at all.

He was disturbing her equilibrium, disturbing her body and mind in equal measures, raising the awareness of one to an alarming level and lowering the abilities of the other to an equally dangerous extent.

His arms contracted gently around her when her bottom settled on an enormous thigh as they hugged. Then he pulled back and kissed her lightly on the lips.

Damn, why did him holding her like this have to feel so friggin' comfortable, and warm and safe and protected, especially when she had the distinct feeling that the fate of her bottom was in peril by being so close to him?

But it was hard to care about that when he was making her feel so good by doing exactly what she'd always wanted him to do, although she'd successfully hidden that desire from everyone, including herself.

"Was your trip a success?"

A corner of his mouth went up. "Well, I don't think that 'success' was really what I was there for. Let's just say I put out the necessary fires until the next time they inevitably break out."

"Oh, dear. That doesn't sound good."

"How were your last couple of weeks?"

"All right."

"Did you finish your book? I remember you saying that you were working on the last chapter."

"No, I didn't."

"Why not, sweetie?"

She shrugged. "Just distracted, I guess."

"Oh. Well, as I gather Dante told you, I was incommunicado for pretty much all of this trip, and I'm sorry if I worried you when you couldn't get ahold of me."

"That's okay."

That was not really the reaction he wanted to hear from her. "No, it's not. I should have, but I didn't, and I'll be better about that in the future, I promise."

"Okay."

Before she knew it, his lips had found hers again, and it was damned near impossible not to kiss him back, even though she knew it was wrong to do so until they'd had the discussion that they desperately needed to have about their relationship.

As he was kissing her, Sabin moved her onto her knees in front of him, between his legs, making her feel extremely vulnerable to him. Then he cupped her chin in his hand, bringing her eyes to his. "I missed you. I thought about you and that wonderful time we spent together, almost every second of the entire trip."

He released her chin to unbutton his cuffs, rolling up his sleeves very methodically, and making her extremely nervous as he did so. Honey tried hard to ignore the fact that that action—that very deliberate action that he was taking—was almost always a preamble to a spanking, in her experience.

"I thought a lot about you, too," she answered softly, giving him a shy smile that he found very endearing. "That's why I texted and called you. I really want us to talk."

"So do I," he agreed, but at the same time, Honey found herself being lifted over his lap, hands balancing herself on the plush carpeting at one end, legs hanging well in the air at the other—nowhere near the floor—as he adjusted her position to his liking, making certain that her beautiful bottom was raised prominently for him.

"What are you doing?" she asked nervously, but much too late, as he wrapped his left arm across the small of her back, tucking the fingers of that hand around her far hip.

"I'm going to spank you, Honey."

She had been trying to get away since he'd lifted her off the floor, but now she began to struggle in earnest at that pronouncement. "No, Sabin, don't!"

He brought his palm down onto a bottom that was barely covered by a thin skirt and utterly useless thong panties, neither of which provided her with any protection whatsoever.

And each time that hand met either of her cheeks, it made her flesh wobble enough that the painful sensations he was generating were being translated—with depressing ease—to the place she least wanted them to be. That little string between her cheeks wasn't going to absorb any of the honey she was going to produce if he kept spanking her like this. If they decided to stay together like this, she was probably going to have to rethink her underwear choices, just in self-defense.

"Sabin! Stop! Please!"

She put her hand back, to try to defend herself against the onslaught, and lost its use entirely as he held it clamped to her back, making her feel just that much more helpless against the spanking he was delivering—and that, in turn, had her gushing between—and past—her bare lips.

He was very methodical this time, slapping hard and fast over every inch of her backside, then marching his hand up and down each cheek, and most of the way to the backs of her thighs on either side. She hated to be spanked on the backs of her thighs and began to kick up whenever he did that.

The first time her bare foot came in contact with his hand, Sabin stopped, speaking to her in a sterner voice than he ever had before. "If you do that again, I will make you go get the ping pong paddle that I know is in the bookcase with the games in your spare bedroom, Honey. And I guarantee that you will beg for my hand when you've barely been swatted with that at all. I don't want you to knock my hand and have me accidentally spanking you on a spot that's not designed for it."

He seemed to be waiting for her to say something and ended up prompting her, "Yes, Sir?"

"Y-yes, Sir," she parroted back to him automatically, wishing she hadn't as soon as the words were out of her mouth. But if she sassed back at him—as what was left of her mind wanted her to do—she knew it would go much worse for her, and this was quite bad enough already!

The spanking resumed immediately, and it took everything in her not to kick up again. She scissor-kicked, crossed and uncrossed her feet, and she certainly did fidget and wiggle within his hold, but her foot didn't come anywhere near his hand again. And his thighs were so long that she had no hope of being able to escape by trying to work her way off his lap somehow, either. Not that she didn't give it a valiant try.

It was a very long, extremely deliberate spanking, delivered without a warm up. He spanked her hard and sharply, right from the beginning, and before he was halfway through, her poor behind was a bright, shiny, swollen mess, but he didn't let that deter him.

Honey sobbed, begged, moaned, and pleaded with him to stop, knowing even as she was doing it that it wasn't going to do any good, but she couldn't seem to stop herself. There was absolutely nothing else she could do to try to prevent him from bringing his palm down—sometimes in the very same spot for ten or twelve smacks in a row—again and again on her painfully overheated flesh.

"S-Sabin! Sabin, please! No more!" she wailed, over and over, until she couldn't even manage that but ended up simply weeping over his lap until he suddenly stopped.

As she continued to sob, he arranged her again so that she was back in his arms, perched carefully so that nothing touched her extremely sore, stinging bottom.